10 AUGUST 1929, Page 13

HARVEST AND MACHINES.

The harvest now falling is not likely to be notable for its yield ; but it will give evidence of the rapid increase of machinery on the farm. In the hayfields some of us saw for the first time motor scoops in operation. They could pick up piled hay without intervention of any hands and deliver it direct to the lifts. All over the world new harvesting machines for ground are being tried. We have not in England the wide spaces that make most of these profitable ; and the value we set on the straw rules a good many out of court. But combination machines which thresh as well as cut and bind are being tried in the South ; and some few producers expect to have ploughed their harvest land before the end